Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Believing The Strangest Things
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 05.07.1999
Aeryn comes down the corridor, Rygel calling out to her. "We need to take off immediately!" he shouts. "The ship is collapsing and Pilot is refusing to follow my commands." Heh. I would like a whole episode of Pilot trying to deal with Rygel. Pissy v. Prissy: two Muppets enter, one Muppet gets shaken baby syndrome and then falls for a very long time. Aeryn notices Zhaan trying to get up, and Zhaan again starts saying they're out of time. "We need to remove the device right now," she says, and Rygel tells them both to fuck off. Aeryn reaches out to him to shove him back in the hole, and Rygel takes a nasty chunk out of her arm. She gasps, and there's a lingering, horrible shot of him chewing on her arm chunk with a grin on his face and blood everywhere. Gross me out, Rygel! God! Aeryn steps up again, I assume to rip his face off, but Zhaan touches her arm and asks her to wait outside. As Aeryn leaves, she mutters darkly and melodramatically, "Your greatest fear will come to pass, Hynerian. Someday you will die at the hands of a Peacekeeper." I get the same way when I stub my toe or get scratched by a cat. There's something very comforting about talking like Moses when you're in pain.
I like this next part very much. Rygel grumbles off Aeryn's little speech that she won't even get the chance because they're all going to be crushed by Moya's Britney poundage "...or I kill her myself." Zhaan smiles and figures it out. "You're afraid! You're afraid this great ship will die." It doesn't push his usual bravado buttons because she says it lovingly and without scorn -- makes it something to be celebrated, not weakness. "I don't know what I'm doing. I've always had others to do for me. Even in prison I...I don't even know how to hold a tool." Those are for techs. I wish there were more meat for a Rygel/Aeryn comparison. All I know is that John loves them the most. More than Chiana, more than D'Argo, John loves Sparky. It drives me bats. "There's great pain in this for all of us, isn't there?" asks Zhaan, and it's not at all condescending -- she realizes the relativity of pain, which is something that few people on this show understand, and it's her greatest asset: there is no difference between his pain at fucking up, Moya's pain at having nerve surgery without anesthetic, and Zhaan eating a whole ship's worth of agony. It's not just Delvian bullshit either: that's the way things work. He looks up at her, entirely innocent. Which is probably his greatest asset, and the other reason it has to be him that does this. "Come," she says, taking his hand. "We'll face the pain together." She leaves, and he continues to think and sigh, but she's got him and they both know it.